Tuesday, August 28, 2012

What does the historical record say about how fast secularism can collapse in countries?

Three important questions:

1. What does the historical record tell us about how fast secularism can collapse in societies?

2. Is there a global resurgence of religion?

3. What are the 13+ recent grim events relating to Darwinism, atheism and agnosticism that should give every militant Darwinist nightmares?

In 2003, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University published a paper by Assaf Moghadam entitled A Global Resurgence of Religion? The paper declared that there was "ample evidence" that the argument of a global resurgence of religion could largely be sustained.

Demography of religion scholars Eric Kaufmann, Dr. Todd M. Johnson and the Pew Forum concur that there is a global resurgence of religion.

1. The best evidence points to global atheism and agnosticism shrinking in the world while global Christianity and creationism is seeing significant growth. Theologically liberal churches are shrinking while many theologically conservative churches are growing

2. Creationism has recently grown in the United States according to a Gallup Inc. survey. Recently, evolution unfriendly laws have been passed in the United States. Theologically conservative Bible clubs are proliferating across the United States at a rapid rate and creationists will certainly make alliances with them. This could spread around the world.

3. Theologically conservative Christianity and creationism is growing quickly in various Western nations, in Latin America, in Asia and in Africa.

4, The shrinking of global atheism/agnosticism will affect Western agnosticism/atheism in an age of globalization (immigration, global communication and travel, etc.)

5. The decline of global atheism/agnosticism is expected to accelerate.

6. Evangelical Christians are making rapid advances in internet evangelism (Global Media Outreach in 2011 did 149 million gospel presentation via the internet). Prominent atheist websites have seen big drops in traffic in the last 5 years.

7. Christian creation evangelists are communicating with their internet evangelism brethren with a goal of dramatically increasing creation evangelism on the internet and through offline methods. In addition, a plan has been developed to help accelerate the global decline of atheism/agnosticism and the continued rapid growth of global Christianity and creationism. Atheists and agnostics have no plan to reverse their global decline in adherents.

9. In the general population, a recent study suggests that most people believe in evolution based on a "gut feeling".

10. After experiencing Darwinist harassment in the recent past, creationists who are growing in power due to higher fertility rates, immigration and evangelism will pull the plug on evolutionism being promoted in public schools. In addition, in an era of many governments being strapped for cash, more and more primary, secondary and higher education schools will be privatized and many of these schools will be run by religious organizations. In addition, given that private schools are on average less costly to run, there will be more vouchers and charter schools which will increase religious schooling hostile to Darwinism. Also, many schools will have less funds to launch frivolous lawsuits against creationist students.

11. China which has the largest population of atheists is seeing an explosive growth of Christianity in the both the countryside and in urban centers

12. European creationism is growing and secular Europe is having significant economic problems and could turn to God for answers

Not a pretty picture for Darwinism, atheism, agnosticism and theologically liberal religion is it? Secularism could certainly collapse in coming years, couldn't it?

So how fast could secularism collapse in various countries and in the world?

Historical examination the collapse of secularism in Russia and Eastern Europe

As noted previously, in 2003 the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard published a paper by Assaf Moghadam entitled A Global Resurgence of Religion?

In that paper Assaf Moghadam wrote:

As the indications leave little doubt, Russia is showing clear signs of a religious resurgence. In fact, all seven criteria by which change in religious behavior and values are measured here confirmed that Russia is experiencing what could be called a religious revival. Since 1970, the nonreligious/atheist population has been on steady decline, from 52% in 1970 to 33% in 2000. Further, the percentage of this population is projected to decrease even further, possibly reaching the 20% mark in 2025. Between 1990 and 1997, belief in God has risen from 35% to a whopping 60%, while belief in the importance of God has climbed to 43% in 1997, up from 25% in 1990. More people have been raised religious in Russia in 1997 (20%) than at the beginning of the decade (18%), and 8.39% more Russians believed religion to be important toward the end of the 1990s, when compared to 1990. “Comfort in Religion” has also sharply increased within this time period, from less than 27% to over 46%. Finally, more and more Russians attend church services more regularly in 1997 than they did in 1990.

In the three Eastern European countries that were included in the WVS survey on belief in God, a drastic rise could be witnessed of respondents who answered this question in the affirmative. In Hungary, the percentage of believers in God jumped from 44% to 58% from 1981 to 1990, even prior to the collapse of the former Soviet Union. In Belarus, the number of people who believe in God nearly doubled over the course of the 1990s, from 36% to 68%, while in Latvia this figure almost quadrupled, from 18% to 67% in the same time period. Similar trends held true when it came to the importance of God, where there was a sharp rise in all three countries.

What is less fragile than secularism? Eggs or vases perhaps?

Let's drive 15 stakes in the heart of Darwinism and put it out of its misery